# Greece & Rome to 30 BC by Sanderson Beck

### BECK index

GREECE & ROME to 30 BC has been published. For ordering information please click here.

### Preface

### Greek Culture to 500 BC

> #### Crete, Mycenae and Dorians
> Iliad
> Odyssey
> Hesiod and Homeric Hymns
> Aristocrats, Tyrants, and Poets
> Spartan Military Laws
> Athenian Political Laws
> Aesop's Fables
> Pythagoras and Early Philosophy

### Greek Politics and Wars 500-360 BC

> #### Persian Invasions
> Athenian Empire 479-431 BC
> Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC
> Spartan Hegemony 404-371 BC
> Theban Hegemony 371-360 BC
> Syracusan Tyranny of Dionysius 405-367 BC

### Greek Theatre

> #### Aeschylus

> > #### The Persians
> > The Suppliant Maidens
> > Seven Against Thebes
> > Prometheus Bound
> > Agamemnon
> > Libation Bearers
> > The Eumenides

> #### Sophocles

> > #### Ajax
> > Antigone
> > Oedipus the Tyrant
> > The Women of Trachis
> > Electra
> > Philoctetes
> > Oedipus at Colonus

> #### Euripides

> > #### Rhesus
> > Alcestis
> > Medea
> > Hippolytus
> > Heracleidae
> > Andromache
> > Hecuba
> > The Cyclops
> > Heracles
> > The Suppliant Women
> > The Trojan Women
> > Electra
> > Helen
> > Iphigenia in Tauris
> > Ion
> > The Phoenician Women
> > Orestes
> > Iphigenia in Aulis
> > The Bacchae

> #### Aristophanes

> > #### The Acharnians
> > The Knights
> > The Clouds
> > The Wasps
> > Peace
> > The Birds
> > Lysistrata
> > The Thesmophoriazusae
> > The Frogs
> > The Ecclesiazusae
> > Plutus

### Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato

> #### Empedocles
> Socrates
> Xenophon's Socrates

> > #### Defense of Socrates
> > Memoirs of Socrates
> > Symposium
> > Oikonomikos

> #### Xenophon

> > #### Cyropaedia
> > Hiero
> > Ways and Means

> #### Plato's Socrates

> > #### Alcibiades
> > Charmides
> > Protagoras
> > Laches
> > Lysis
> > Menexenus
> > Hippias
> > Euthydemus
> > Meno
> > Gorgias
> > Phaedrus
> > Symposium
> > Euthyphro
> > Defense of Socrates
> > Crito
> > Phaedo

> #### Plato's Republic
> Plato's Later Work

> > #### Seventh Letter
> > Timaeus
> > Critias
> > Theaetetus
> > Sophist
> > Politician
> > Philebus
> > Laws

### Isocrates, Aristotle, and Diogenes

> #### Hippocrates
> Isocrates
> Aristotle
> Aristotle's Rhetoric
> Aristotle's Ethics
> Aristotle's Politics
> Diogenes

### Philip, Demosthenes, and Alexander

> #### Dionysius II, Dion, and Timoleon in Sicily
> Wars and Macedonian Expansion under Philip
> Demosthenes and Aeschines
> Alexander's Conquest of the Persian Empire

### Hellenistic Era

> #### Battles of Alexander's Successors
> Egypt Under the Ptolemies
> Alexandrian Poetry
> Seleucid Empire
> Judea in the Hellenistic Era
> Antigonid Macedonia and Greece
> Xenocrates, Pyrrho, and Theophrastus
> Menander's New Comedy
> Epicurus and the Hedonists
> Zeno and the Stoics

### Roman Expansion to 133 BC

> #### Roman and Etruscan Kings
> Republic of Rome 509-343 BC
> Rome's Conquest of Italy 343-264 BC
> Rome at War with Carthage 264-201 BC
> Republican Rome's Imperialism 201-133 BC

### Roman Revolution and Civil Wars

> #### Reforms of the Gracchi Brothers
> Marius and Sulla
> Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, and Cato
> Julius Caesar Dictator
> Brutus, Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra

### Plautus, Terence, and Cicero

> #### Plautus

> > #### The Menaechmi
> > The Asses
> > The Merchant
> > The Swaggering Soldier
> > Stichus
> > The Pot of Gold
> > Curculio
> > Epidicus
> > The Captives
> > The Rope
> > Trinummus
> > Mostelleria
> > Pseudolus
> > The Two Bacchides
> > Amphitryo
> > Casina
> > The Persian
> > Truculentus

> #### Terence

> > #### The Woman of Andros
> > The Mother-In-Law
> > The Self-Tormentor
> > The Eunuch
> > Phormio
> > The Brothers

> #### Lucretius
> Catullus
> Virgil
> Cicero
> Cicero on Oratory
> Cicero's Republic and Laws
> Cicero on Ethics

### Summary and Evaluation

> #### Greece
> Rome
> Evaluating Greece and Rome

### Bibliography

### Chronology of Europe to 1400
World Chronology to 30 BC
ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index

## Preface

Powerful foundations for western civilization were laid by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Greeks developed the mind with great depth, and in many ways their philosophy and literature are still unsurpassed. From the epic poetry of Homer to the dramatic tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the hilarious comedies of Aristophanes to the brilliant Socratic dialogs of Plato, and the comprehensive lectures of Aristotle that founded many academic disciplines, the classics of ancient Greece are still being studied and appreciated. Yet the aggressive Greeks and Romans fought almost continuous wars. Although the Athenians pioneered democracy and defended themselves against invasions by the Persian empire, they developed their own imperialism that brought them into a devastating conflict with their more militaristic neighbors in Sparta. Alexander got revenge by conquering the Persian empire; but eventually the Romans with their Senate and ability to govern other peoples enabled them to overcome the Greeks. Yet their republic was divided by social conflicts and the ambitions of powerful generals, causing a series of civil wars involving Julius Caesar and his heir Octavian that ended the republic and began the powerful Roman empire.
Many of the current trends in western civilization are based on the experiences and ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we can learn much from understanding their history, literature, and philosophical ideas. The Chronological Index and Alphabetical Index make this a useful reference book for looking things up. For readers wanting to begin by getting an overall picture of this era, I recommend that you read first the last chapter, the Summary and Evaluation. Reading this entire book will give one a basic understanding of the main events and contributions of the ancient Greeks and Romans. With that overall background, one will then be able to choose which original works to read to gain further knowledge and wisdom. I hope that we can learn important lessons from the ethics of the Greeks and Romans so that we can save our own civilization, which is currently in great danger of self-destruction.

### BECK index